(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sensing home plate, and more particularly to a sensing home plate assembled from a home plate main body, and a sensing device disposed in the interior of the main body, and which is applicable for use in the sport of baseball to accurately determine strikes (good pitches) and balls (bad pitches) to assist the chief umpire in making decisions, and thereby reduce erroneous judgments.
(b) Description of the Prior Art
The sport of baseball is a very well-known sport, however, just like any other sport, baseball is subject to erroneous judgments made by the umpire.
In the present sport of baseball, because the decision of whether a pitch is a strike (good pitch) or a ball (bad pitch) is still determined by the chief umpire. And although baseball rules already stipulate the zone of a strike (good pitch) thrown by the pitcher, however, because of individual factors of the chief umpire, the aforementioned erroneous judgments frequently occur.
The aforementioned arguments over strikes (good pitches) or balls (bad pitches) will inevitably occur in situations where there is no chief umpire on site to determine strikes (good pitches) and balls (bad pitches), or in situation where a non-professional individual temporarily fills the position of the chief umpire, such as a baseball practice field. Furthermore, in official baseball games, the influence power of whether decisions made by the chief umpire are correct or not far exceeds that of other sports. For example, in basketball and soccer, after the referee blows a whistle, if any of the aforementioned arguments occur, then game time is temporarily suspended, and film captured by cameras can be replayed to visually inspect the true, correct result. However, game time in official baseball games cannot be interrupted, thus, the instantaneous decision of a strike (good pitch) or ball (bad pitch) is enough to affect the following action of the baseball player and the result of the baseball game.
Hence, fairness of baseball decisions is easily subject to question, resulting in disputes, and is one of the primary reasons why baseball cannot be included as an official event in the Olympic Games.
In order to reduce erroneous judgments, and increase the correctness of decisions made, apart from training to strengthen the skills of umpires, if scientific methods could also be used to accurately determine strikes (good pitches) and balls (bad pitches), as well as instantaneously display the results to show impartiality, then such methods would certainly contribute to the fairness of baseball games and reduce disputes. However, since the development of the sport of baseball up to the present time, no related designs have been seen that are able to determine strikes (good pitches) or balls (bad pitches) to assist the chief umpire in making decisions.